The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit on Friday affirmed by a vote of 2-1 the dismissal of a Bivens action filed by a US citizen alleging that he was tortured and threatened by US Federal Bureau of Investigation couter-terrorism agents in Ethiopia, Somalia, and Kenya and this conduct violated his constitutional rights. [...]
US President Barack Obama on Thursday vetoed the National Defense Authorization Act of 2016 (NDAA) because military defense spending would exceed caps set under the Budget Control Act of 2011 and the NDAA would restrict the transfer of detainees held at Guantanamo Bay . The proposed $612 billion NDAA includes a $38 billion increase in [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Margaret Dore argues that a new law to legalize assisted suicide is a recipe for elder abuse and family trauma, and that it will encourage people with years to live to throw away their lives… California has passed a bill to legalize physician-assisted suicide, which is scheduled to go into effect during [...]
At a press conference on Friday, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights shared concerns over the “rapidly worsening security and human rights situation in Burundi,” noting that 198 people have been killed in the nation since April, with 63 of those deaths coming in the last three weeks. UN spokesman [...]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Friday called on the European Union (EU) and Western Balkans states to focus on remedying what it characterizes as deplorable conditions for asylum-seekers in Europe. With hundreds of thousands of people fleeing conflict in the Middle East and Africa, Europe has been overwhelmed with a sudden influx of refugees. Some [...]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Friday reported that police forces in Sri Lanka regularly torture and ill-treat criminal suspects in custody. HRW Asia director Brad Adams said, “he Sri Lankan police treat the use of torture as an ordinary way of obtaining confessions.” HRW compiled allegations of police torture which took place in Sri Lanka [...]
The Indonesian province of Aceh has begun to enforce a law based on Sharia law which bans homosexual sex as well as adultery. Both locals and foreigners may now be punished with “100 strokes of the cane” upon proof that they engaged in an outlawed liaison. The law was passed in 2014, and despite facing [...]
Governments must commit themselves to further action to globally improve housing conditions and urban development, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to housing Leilani Farha said Thursday. Farha made the statement as she was discussing her latest report on the implementation of a New Urban Agenda and while launching a year-long campaign centered around human [...]
UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression David Kaye spoke out on Thursday against governments and international organizations who lack protection for whistleblowers. Kaye believes that there are numerous whistleblowers who withhold information that should be made public because of intimidation from government officials and peers. In his report , the UN Special Rapporteur noted [...]
The state of Texas, along with Kansas and Louisiana, on Thursday filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of the Health Insurance Providers Fee required under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) . Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton believes that the ACA’s providers fee forces states to pay an unconstitutional tax and threatens to cut Medicaid for [...]
